‘Can we sleep at night?’: Renowned tech journalist explains why he pulled his newsletter publication from X and Substack

Casey Newton won’t compromise on Nazis.

Casey Newton won’t compromise on Nazis. In a world in which it can be difficult to read the moral compass of some legacy news organizations, the renowned technology journalist and founder of the independent digital news outlet Platformer has taken decisive action to ensure his media company lives up to its own stated values and principles — even when such decisions are laced with risk and potential business repercussions. Over the past several months, Newton has made difficult decisions to sever relationships and move Platformer off both Substack and X, the platform formally known as Twitter. Both companies have declined to engage in basic content moderation, allowing hate and other forms of toxic content to swell on their respective platforms. For Newton, maintaining a presence on both X and Substack violated both his personal and business’ moral constitution. “A big part of it was can we sleep at night?” Newton rhetorically asked by phone Thursday, noting the decisions were made in conjunction with his managing editor Zoë Schiffer. “Do we feel good about where we are spending our time? Do we feel good about who we are building value for? And in the cases of X and Substack, the answers were no.” Newton explained that X owner Elon Musk is in “open warfare against journalists on the platform,” adding he “truly had no idea” why any journalist or news organization would choose to contribute to it. In the case of Substack, Newton expressed disappointment that the newsletter publisher had strenuously resisted calls to prohibit “literal 1930s-style Nazis” from building — and monetizing — audiences. For a journalist whose job it is to call out other companies for maintaining questionable business relationships, Newton said it would have not only been ethically dubious for him to ignore the decisions X and Substack were making, but hypocritical as well.